ABSTRACT
James Gee suggested that an identity is a kind of category that is recognizable by others. Using a more subjective definition in her book on Teacher Identity Discourses, Janet Alsup defined identity as a general sense of selfhood or understanding of the self. So, developing a nuanced teacher identity is difficult for at least three reasons. First, people have to work out the inevitable tensions between our multiple identities in the use of our time, our bodies, and our emotional commitments. Second, developing a nuanced teacher identity is difficult because some norms to which teachers are subject are overly simplistic stereotypes. Students caregivers also have expectations for how teachers should behave. It may be that your understanding of the collaborative roles of teachers and caregivers in the education of each child may align, or it may differ from theirs. Thus, the actions and interactions that are recognized as good teaching need to change to incorporate multimodal literacy and sociolinguistics knowledge.
